Since its initial launch in 2007, the YouTube Data API has become one of Google’s most popular APIs by request volume, thanks to the awesome apps from developers like you. To help you make better integrated video experiences, you can now use the YouTube API version 3.0. The new API is easy to use thanks to rich client library support, improved tooling, reference documentation and integration with Google’s common API infrastructure. Version 3.0 only returns what you ask for and uses JSON rather than XML encoding for greater efficiency. The API introduces new core functionality including Freebase integration via topics, and universal search. If you develop social media management apps, you’ll love channel bulletin post and full subscriber list management, also new in this release. Version 3.0 of the API constitutes the API's biggest overhaul to date and we’re eager for you to try it today!

New functionality: Topics, universal search, and audience engagement support

Have you ever tried to search for YouTube videos only to find out that keyword search can produce ambiguous results? With the new Topics API, thanks to the power of Freebase, you can find exactly what you’re looking for by specifying Freebase topic IDs rather than search keywords.

For example, if you’re reading this post from outside of the US and you would like to search for content related to football, /m/02vx4 is probably the topic ID you're after. The API's universal search feature lets you retrieve channels, playlists and videos matching the topic with just one request like this one. Find out more in our Topics API Guide.

Version 3.0 introduces better tools to engage and interact with your YouTube audience. Social media management apps can now help content creators communicate with their channel subscribers using bulletin posts.

Learn more

If you would like to learn more about the YouTube API version 3.0, read the full post on The YouTube API Blog. The post covers efficiency improvements, features several companies already using version 3.0 and contains useful links to source code examples and documentation. Alternatively, feel free to get started by watching some of the videos from our YouTube API version 3 playlist.

Raul Furnică is the YouTube API Tech Lead, based in Zürich. He is a believer that API interfaces should be optimized for ease of use, not server implementation.

Vladimir Vuskovic is a Product Manager at Google, and manages YouTube APIs and uploads. He got his Ph.D. from the robotics institute at ETH Zurich.

Pepijn Crouzen is a Software Engineer on the YouTube API Team and he is based in Paris.